Collection: Reading Sets

This hauntingly prophetic novel centres around a not-too-distant future where happiness is allocated on a TV screen, individuals and scholars are outcasts and books are burned by a special task force of firemen.

Fired from his newspaper, cantankerous, boozy drama critic Ted Wallace seeks a few months repose and free drink at Swafford Hall, the home of his old friend Lord Logan. But strange things have been going on there - miracles and healings - phenomena beyond the ken of a mud-caked hippopotamus like ...

The central figure of this novel is the returning "native", Clym Yeobright, and his love for the beautiful but capricious Eustacia Vye. As character after character is driven to self-destruction, the presence of Egdon Heath becomes all-embracing, while Clym becomes a preacher.

This story is told by a young soldier in the trenches of Flanders during the First World War. Through his eyes we see the realities of war. Incidents are vividly described, but there is no sense of adventure, only the feeling of youth betrayed.

It is 1918, and Prior is in London working as an Intelligence officer. His concern is the enemy within - though a clear definition of who exactly the enemy is proves harder to come by than he might have imagined.